CHRISTMAS is within touching distance of the tape but galloping up on the outside is the Omicron variant, ready to bring the festivities and our economy to a screeching halt.
How much of that more-than-likely possibility is attributable to the failure of the better-off countries to cater for the health needs of under-resourced poorer countries which in themselves are in no position to carry out comprehensive vaccination programmes against the virus?
As long as that state of affairs continues to exist, the virus will quietly gestate unseen, allowing newer variants to spring into existence, only to come to our notice via the systems of testing available to the better-prepared territories when individuals return from holiday or business trips to those regions or individuals from those untreated areas visit the shores of Europe and the UK.
While scientists are fighting to find a remedy to limit the ravages of Omicron, in the background other variants will be evolving in the Petri dish of untreated populations with the capacity of eluding the effects of the current vaccines.
No one as yet knows what potential Covid has for producing dangerous variants through mutation or whether it will eventually blow itself out, having exhausted its range of variants.
If Covid has the same capacity as the flu virus to keep coming back in a new form then we are going to have to create new vaccines every year to counteract the danger to the world’s population.
Recently there has been one hopeful but belated development, in that the G7 is going to meet to identify the best way forward to keep this virus under control. Let us hope that they come to realise that they must cooperate strenuously to fulfil the pious mantra that no one is safe until everyone is safe.
Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs.
STURGEON’S SCAREMONGERING
AS we have seen and heard all too often during the Covid pandemic, given the content, tone and manner of Nicola Sturgeon’s rhetoric over the last 24 hours regarding the new Omicron variant, we now witness again that her communication is tantamount to scaremongering.
Her hyperbole is not only wholly unwarranted and unnecessary, but is at odds with the majority of the professional medical opinion so far communicated, is most dangerous in the behavioural responses it might evoke, and is frankly nothing more than the rantings of a failing despot.
Your own headline this morning, “Sturgeon fires warning as third case is linked to UK” (The Herald, November 19), says it all. Her talk of possible travel restrictions, a return of indoor gathering controls and limitations, all on the back of only – at time of writing – six cases of the new variant in Scotland and no deaths as a result of it.
Communicating what she does and how she does it, Nicola Sturgeon herself will be the cause of panic, distress and dangerous uncertainty, not the new Omicron variant.
Paul McPhail, Glasgow.
FLAWED DECISION TO DROP VALVENA
OMICRON is now here in Scotland. And 100 million doses of a Scottish-made vaccine, Valvena, that would have been effective in fighting this dangerous new variant was cancelled by the UK Government just two months ago.
Current vaccines, such as AstraZeneca, target the protein spikes, which are the parts of the virus that mutate. Valneva, by contrast, introduces a whole neutralised Covid virus into the body, not just the spike proteins, giving a broader immune response by increasing the memory cells that recognise all parts of the virus should infection occur.
A year ago, former vaccine head Kate Bingham had ordered 100 million doses of Valneva, recognising its potential to provide a better immune response against future variants. The UK Government then cancelled the order, citing breach of contract, which Valneva denies. She called the abrupt cancellation inexplicable. Professor Adam Finn of JCVI is among several scientists urging the UK to reconsider Valneva. He said we need more than one vaccine option to deal with “an unpredictable, dangerous variant” like Omicron.
One can’t help but suspect that the UK Government’s refusal to use Valneva was because of its Scottish/French origins. Scotland is used to being dissed by Westminster, as we saw in the decision not to develop the shovel-ready Aberdeenshire carbon capture project. Only by ending an unequal Union that has served us so badly will we be able to make decisions that finally benefit Scotland.
Leah Gunn Barrett, Edinburgh.
AN EXCUSE FOR THE PM
HOW convenient that a new variant of Covid-19 has emerged just in time to give Boris Johnson a good excuse for restoring the restrictions which he should never have removed in the first place; the more cautious policy of our much-maligned Scottish Government has been clearly vindicated.
Am I the only person who heard the interview with the South African doctor who first spotted the new variant? She explained that none of the patients affected by it had experienced anything more than mild symptoms and it was clear that she did not consider that any panic measures were required.
Willie Maclean, Milngavie.
LOSE THE SNP BY VOTING YES
MAY I please reassure Michael Watson (Letters, November 29) that the SNP-free Scotland he wishes may very well be available to him after, but only after, independence.
Once the goal of independence is achieved, it is likely, probably almost certain, that the Labour, LibDem, Green and even Tory supporters who are temporary members of the SNP to win independence will revert to their normal parties. Any SNP thereafter will be very different, if it still exists, and there may be other new parties also on offer at the first Scottish General Election.
Parties may change, but Mr Watson’s right to vote for his choice will not, and like every other eligible voter, he will get the government the majority elect.
Anent the rant from Douglas Cowe (Letters, November 29) against “gullible” supporters of Nicola Sturgeon, and his dubious, unspecified statistics, it would be interesting to hear his views on the proportion of anti-Tory votes regularly cast for Westminster, under a much less representative system. He will find that the percentage voting against the Tories is consistently very much higher than recorded against the SNP here. Yet we have had Tory governments with sometimes huge majorities, on a vote share of less than 40%.
His characterisation of SNP supporters as “gullible” is an insult to the intelligence of a proven vast number of Scots. I suspect that the gullibility boot is on the other foot.
P Davidson, Falkirk.
CURRENCY CONFUSION
THE SNP conference has once again supported the idea of a secessionist Scotland adopting its own currency, in spite of the manifold difficulties that would create for people with mortgages and loans contracted in pounds sterling (“SNP says plan for Indyref2 in 2023 needs ‘ideal set of circumstances’”, The Herald, November 29). This signals rank and file support for the plans of Dr Tim Rideout for a Scottish Reserve Bank. Yet the official SNP line remains that a separate Scotland would continue to use the pound for an unspecified time after any split with the UK. Nicola Sturgeon, her ministers and SNP elected members tell us that the Scottish public overwhelmingly favour retaining the pound. That is the message they hear on the doorsteps.
So which is it? A party intent on putting a major constitutional choice before us must surely know which currency it intends to adopt? Or not?
Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh.
* CONGRATULATIONS to the ordinary members of the SNP in conference last weekend who overwhelmingly endorsed the principle of establishing a Scottish Central Bank and currency following independence.
This removes any further discussion on retaining sterling and the Establishment trappings advocated by Alex Salmond’s Council of Economic Advisors in 2013 and the Charlotte Street lobbyists who concocted the suicide pill called the Growth Commission Report in 2018.
Perhaps now the several “alternative monetary policy” groups will receive some long overdue encouragement in their work of drafting Scotland’s banking regulations and paving the way to re-establishing Scotland’s international reputation for fair, equitable and mutual financial institutions.
RF Morrison, Helensburgh.
NOTHING FOR JOHNSON TO FEAR
WELL, well, well, there’s a surprise. The SNP is to table a motion of censure on Boris Johnson (“SNP set to table censure motion against ‘disastrous’ PM”, The Herald, November 29). This is standard nationalist deflection tactics and clearly an attempt to reassure the troops and take attention away from the fact that its dream is even further off than it was 2014.
Its censure motion on the Prime Minister is a bigger joke than even Mr Johnson. He is unlikely to be quaking in his shoes.
Alexander McKay, Edinburgh.
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